The Dutch Office of Medicinal Cannabis (DOMC) is a government organization responsible for the availability of medicinal cannabis in pharmacies. This medicinal cannabis is used for medicinal and scientific purposes. Through the DOMC, Dutch pharmacies provide their customers, whom have a doctor’s prescription, with medicinal cannabis (MC). The agency is led by Dr. Marco Van de Velde, medical biologist, and is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health and Sport.

Patrick Dewals: Doctor van de Velde how long has the DOMC existed?

Dr. Marco Van de Velde: In 1998, the former minister decided to set up the bureau. But because of the regulatory and legislative work associated with the drafting of a new government agency, it took until 2001 before the office was actually installed and only in September 2003 came the first MC on the market.

My search for an expert opinion on medicinal cannabis (MC) brings me to California. Since 1996, following a referendum, medicinal cannabis is legal in the sunny U.S. state. It is estimated that there are already more than one million California patients that use MC.

The cheerful Dr. David Bearman is an expert in the field of substance abuse. In 1971 he co-founded, in Seattle (Washington), the third US Free Clinic. He is a frequent speaker on MC, member of various advisory committees and testifies regularly as a scientific expert in court.

Patrick Dewals: How would you describe the knowledge of the endocannabinoid system of the average American doctor?

Sofie Voncken is a six year old girl who appeared in a June 2015 episode of “Koppen” on the Flemish television channel (VRT). Sofie has lived since she was three years old with a particularly severe form of epilepsy that unquestionably changed her life forever. After years of fruitless treatment, the medical team was distraught; they informed the parents about the painful situation. “They told us to prepare ourselves for the worst. This is not something you want to hear as a parent!”

Fortunately Sofie’s parents currently held a wild card aside. A last-minute means of rescue that Western (Belgian) conventional medicine do not know about and that the Leuven medical team didn’t want to be involved with in an active way when Jean-Pierre had told them his last possibility to help his daughter: cannabis (CBD oil).

He had even suggested to them that they should give cannabis oil to Sofie in the hospital under their supervision and they should monitor the results. But in the Belgian academic hospital they didn’t want to honor this request of a very anxious father and there was nothing left for the Voncken’s other than giving Sofie cannabis oil in their home by themselves. Before we learn the rest of the story, we must first answer another question. How did Jean-Pierre come to his extensive knowledge of cannabis oil?